Sasakamoose recounts his days from early childhood, hazy as they were, to contrast the residential school experience he rarely was able to talk about, and affected every facet of his life. On top of this horrific abuse, he was heralded by loved ones for pioneering the way for indigenous people. It also meant he was completely alone in an environment not beneficial to him, until going home to his family, only to feel like a stranger there as well. Around 40% of the book is what happened to him after that, which is generally where his story ends, as far as people know.

It's always hard to evaluate the voice in an autobiography because it is the author's actual story and their voice, not a plot and not a narrative voice, but an authorial one. And more than that, they also have to decide how much to share with the reader. Given how many failings he admits to and how shocking some of them are, including some accusations when he was chief on the reserve, it rang true to me. It's told quite humbly. It's informative. Sometimes absolutely harrowing to read--particularly in the residential school stories. So many are similar. All include varying degrees of abuse. This one has essentially every version of child abuse you can think of, so gird yourself going in. It's about 20% of the book or so. later on, Sasakamoose talks about how that experience affected people he knew as well. Roughly tracing a through-line across the book to his being able to verbalize what had happened to him on the record.

Obviously not always an "enjoyable" book to read, with the heavy subject matter, but a successful one and well-rounded. If you want to know granular details about his hockey career, you've got that. What happened to him previously and after, shaping his 20-ish year-long career. Got that too. I wouldn't say there is a strong "arc". It's an old man touching on the predominant memories he has. I wouldn't say it features very strong writing, but it doesn't need to for this kind of story. And we now know it's good he decided to put these thoughts down--sadly he passed away from COVID at the end of 2020. He would not have a chance to tell his story. Or narrate his story, either. Wilton Littlechild does a good job telling Sasakamoose's story. Respectful, unemotional, and importantly, spoke Cree in portions recounting conversations between mother and son. In the "school" system he was put in they had tried to erase this from him. Perhaps the most inspiring sections of the book are these, showcasing how it was unable, in the end, to take that away from him. Especially given all he went on to achieve.

While somewhat uneven, I found this story about a traumatized married woman forced to take care of her mother responsible for her trauma, quite compelling. The tumultuous relationship between mother and daughter was nuanced and bold in its honesty. There is a deep acknowledgement of emotions altering memory, even as it contextualizes a memory from both perspectives such that the casual damage loved ones inflict on one another is depicted as mortal wounds that continue a generational cycle.

The dynamics found in the family are immortalized and, I think, fairly well known and felt in far more than people like to admit. Patterning happens. Whether we want to or not. It is ingrained in our psyche, and as much as we do not want to become our parents. Nor do we want to even look at our dark thoughts. The absolute worst of us.

Putting it on the page and coupling to the cycle where people we characterize as villainous in our lives end up being the template we all too often slip into. It’s a brilliant message, well executed. Intentionally uncomfortable and at once humanizing and condemnable. I found this impossible not to reflect upon while consuming it. No wonder, then, that the reaction is so polarizing.

This is a story about a newly graduated journalism student, Elinor, who catches a break when her ex--and former professor--has his initial assignment to cover a booming oil town in North Dakota. She grew up close to the location, has family in the area, and should develop a personal angle easily, using the research already provided. What follows, however, is anything but simple. The story is primarily used to expose the numerous ways women and men, and the community at large, actually suffer from the boom--even as it ostensibly prospers from the money coming in.

This does a great job of portraying a small oil town. I have lived and worked in a small oil town (Fort McMurray) and currently live in a small, conservative town not far from there. Most of the people here work in oil, and so are very much cut from the same grain. In the process of investigating where the story should be focused, primarily this text is concerned with exposing the granular social issues her very presence exposes. Essentially every interaction is an exercise in weathering sexism, misogyny, racism, general microaggressions, and more. It's exhausting and impedes her ability to do her job effectively.

The themes are the strongest part of the book. It's impossible to miss what the book is trying to convey. But it is also heavy-handed and comes, somewhat, at the expense of other craft. The writing itself, while being very readable and having good flow throughout, is consistently uneven. The diction is bland and explaining, rather than describing things that took me out of the story many times. It also created a strange dichotomy. Some of this is addressed with the B plot, which redeemed the book substantially. Secondary points about sexism and workplace relationships and the byproduct of desirability for other women were well handled.

Plot-wise, we return to shaky ground. Because her initial information is preliminary research and she is to seek out the story within a theme herself for her assignment, it feels rather aimless, though it serves the themes fairly well. Some stuff that is brought up never returns... but it does hit on her perspective and characterizes aspects of the town readers may not be privy to. But the overall effect feels like the shotgun method. Things don't feel tight, some things stick--others fall flat, never landing. And some things that feel like they are important because they've gotten plenty of word count, are completely sidelined for an ending that feels hurried, trite, and a handwave to seemingly essential plot beats.

Overall, the town was vivid and well-realized. The themes, though reiterated far too often sometimes, were clear and accessible; and Elinor was a character I only understood sometimes, because the more interesting elements of her were left to subjectivity, while the themes were, again, so heavy-handed they felt condescending. Overall, I think this succeeds, for the most part. But it also left me fairly cold, overall.

I did like some aspects of this book. There is some philosophical stuff brought up, the aliens can be interesting at times), it’s not completely bad—but I simply can’t get over some of the issues that constantly crop up.

A few scenes make it through, otherwise this has a lot of fundamental problems. The character work is bad, sentence level issues are predominate, dialogue is exceptionally bad. Tonally it vacillated so often I wasn’t sure if it was trying to be comedic in a given scene or not. Mostly, the problems kicked me out of the narrative more often than I was able to get into it. There’s granular detail on stuff that isn’t interesting, it contradicts its own worldbuilding or else handwaves things. It’s on rails, with the protagonist just having things done to her. And she reacts in mystifying ways that hamper the flow and story.

A woman goes missing, a police investigation ensues. Investigators, when talking with the 4 children and father, begin to unravel a secretive past incident—in which a female alleged victim of domestic violence shows up at the home of the woman and her husband, and begins to radically alter the dynamics of entire family—a few months prior. As the narrative cuts back and forth between the past and present, wildly different conclusions suggest themselves to the police.

It’s also fascinatingly comprehensive in its psychological underpinnings. Every character has a B plot that intersects with one another, and ties into the A plot. But more than just being relevant and tying into it, the entire plot actually hinges on seemingly innocuous interactions that are further explored as the book progresses.

It’s actually astounding how much everything matters and how well-crafted everything about this is and feels. The voice is so distinct and masterfully interweaves every person, even as it head hops and maintains a personable and curious gaze.

The interconnected effects of subtle moments that land on the characters illicit a gamut of emotions and consequences. There are no easy answers and there are a lot of complex themes at work. People as contradictory creatures, displaying absolute love and horrid betrayal, characterized prismatically varied, depending on character point of view.

The narrator is absolutely perfect in the audiobook too. I found it very affecting, enjoyable, and unique.

What a pleasant surprise this is. Great prose and a far more nuanced and more interesting social commentary than the movie was.

Tom feels far more competent and less like a hermit crab with the shell of Dickey, and more a transgressive embodiment and exploration of passing in the upper crust. Commenting on the inherent violence of the 1% lifestyle, Tom compartmentalizes every component of his selfhood that isn’t in-line with the performance. It wouldn’t be complete without taking life to maintain monied luxury. What is even more intelligent about this, though, is paralleling queer identity closeting with this class angle; making readers in the 50s experience and consider gender roles in the guise of performance in society, in general.

The marginalized have always been able to adjust themselves to the societal norm. The rich believe birth and privilege as taught to them when socialized away from the normals creates a snowflake framework no one could imitate. They’d know who belongs and who doesn’t. In reality, Ripley shows us that if we wanted to be transactional about our identity, we could easily exchange the infringement on our selfhood for the empowerment that these social circles afford, and are, ostensibly, barred from.

This is about a woman who gives birth to a baby owl. Who has a very active imagination that supplants the real with familiar, but very dark (at times), undertones. When she learns she is pregnant she fears at a primordial level, what might be growing and subsuming her from within. But, given the assurances of the husband, a good provider, they Solider on, going on a very unique birthing experience.

But there is a lot more to it than just that.

What a roller coaster ride this is. Big Fish coupled with Tim Burton in terms of surrealism, colour palette, and horror. But make it feminist, unhinged, and feral.

I’m not sure you ever really “know” what is real and what isn’t. Dialogue from the outside of Tiny mother’s mind seems faithfully recreated at times, while other moments are cardboard cut outs or abbreviated approximations that ring so false, it’d be laughable, if it wasn’t usually so intensely emotionally charged.

The abstractions in this book as it pertains to nature and what is “natural” is wonderfully nuanced here. Had there been a definitive answer that defined or codified reality, I’d have liked this less. The allegory and metaphors instead are able to humanize aspects that do not fit into society, while assigning them time and space and agency in the realm of the natural, which culture continually reveres, even as it chooses not to take any lessons from it, and most often, opts to destroy it entirely. It also makes space for trauma and escapism. For divergences from the normal and accepted.

It also does not allow the reader to feel completely aligned with one parent or the other, amazingly. Both have their failings and both interpret what’s occurring differently. We discredit both at different times, for different reasons. And judge them because of it, as intended by the author. I found this far thought provoking than expected and about more than an alteration of identity due to the new role of motherhood.

And the specificity and diction that build the ecosystem in the book is simply fantastic. Atmosphere drips from every page. It’s engaging and fast-paced. It respects the intelligence of the reader to come to their own conclusions, no handholding, or little of it, when it comes to theme and intent. And on top of that, queer themes are interwoven and become pertinent in, again, a complex way that was very satisfying. Absolutely loved the reading experience and I think it will stay with me for some time.